Glass & The Ghost Children
by Juanita Dark
Summary: Ever get that sinking feeling? [Spender]
1. Setting Sons

GLASS & THE GHOST CHILDREN  
  
Fingers severed on a mirrors edge/Isolated with no respect/Conversation has been replaced/Punctured slowly ideas escape/My possessions are all I have/One man's medicine poisons man/My subconscious knowledge safe/In my coma, in my coma again  
/Get respectable faces donned/Turn blind eyes to what's gone on/Slowly leak ideas through/Would you recognise I knew/Used expression to converse/In my coma I do not hurt/Feel much better but I'm still not cured/In my coma, in my coma again  
Can't Afford To Die - Mansun  
  
[Setting Sons]  
  
Ever get that sinking feeling?  
If I was in darkness I would fear. Were I looking up the barrel of imminence under cover of nightfall I might offer up a prayer to my gods in the darkness, I might feel a grave inevitability, I might even scream like a girl. But the minds of Fate and 'great' mean find a common stream - I am to be shot in broad daylight, where the sun cannot see me, in another man's basement. Here, where the walls wear the light like a dirty shroud and everything but everything is artificial. A facade. A place, I remarked mentally upon my arrival, without a soul.  
  
The man with the gun is my father. And if you look closely, you'll see he casts no shadow. I'm not the only dead man in the room.  
  
"...hoping that my son might honour me like Bill Mulder's son."  
  
She (who?) said, it's not death if you refuse it. And I laughed, a hollow thing. What is it I feel in my veins? That I have one last thing to lose and it's not my defiance? That I am an expression on the end of a long twisted bore - twisted like my father's past, twisted like my mother's life, twisted like the path I took - which ends on the full stop of a bullet? That my father, with the skin as dry as crumpled parchment, would combust spontaneously the next time he lights one?  
  
Come on old man, do it, you'll only be killing yourself. The man you never were. The man I'll never get to be. I'll kiss my mother in hell and you'll *still* be in a lower place.  
  
I do not hear the gun go off, I only see the smoke. I feel the irony. I *feel* my spine stiffen in fury, my heart harden in indignation, my stomach touching despair. And I fall, ladies and gentlemen, I fall. My blood flies in one direction and I fly vainly after, out of this world and into the other. Except I don't. I'm hanging in the doorway, clinging to the frame, slowly being pulled apart.  
  
My father grows farther away. Or perhaps he's just leaving the room? Perhaps the blood swells and strains vainly to the hole in my head and escapes, taking thoughts with it. Perhaps I'm not thinking at all, after all I must have lost half my brain with that bullet, not to mention my mind. But I see and I hear. I know I was shot with my own registered weapon. I know my father left it in my hand to make it look like I committed suicide. I feel all the colour draining out of my face. I feel so disconnected. I pale in limbo. I hear nonsense in my head (or out of it). There are words that spill together and make as much sense as they can:  
a bitterness that grows/fluid as fear/and a gaping hole/that shouldn't be there/as all of my blood to cover my sins/ is a bullet that flies on butterfly wings  
Shadows dance with light. Shadow slips in shadow. I stare redundantly into the light - I can't help it, that's the way I fell. Nobody heard that shot. No one's going to come down here to save my ass.   
  
My father took the photo with him. He took nothing of me, no trophy or momento mori. I am the ghost of his mistake. Orphan to life. Heir to death. No one's son. I don't want to look any more, but I do because my eyes won't listen to me. My hair feels wet, the scalp just throbs. Almost as if the lights are going on and coming off. Going on and coming off. Off.  
  
Maybe my pupils shrink a bit because I'm seeing things now. Dark hair in artificial light. A shade converged to form. She looks a little like Agent Fowley - or maybe someone else? I don't know. I know she's not a woman. Hello whore of death. She twitches in the light. Oh yes, I see you, and you see me. You've come for me. We have an understanding. Dark lips, pale arms. Come sit with me, come sit on me. Come kiss me sweetly. Kiss, kiss, bang, bang. She squats on my chest, and - oh god - she's suddenly so heavy. Hard to breathe. Not sure if I can or ever was. Look into my eyes. My, what a dark tongue you have. All the better to lick you with. She licks my lips. One wet stroke and I see no more. Eyes roll back in my head. I convulse. My body goes into seizure.  
  
  
***  
  



	2. By Starlight

[By Starlight]  
  
I was awake. The last cheap, pithy pips of my digital watch were still alarming. It was close to 1a.m. The moonlight was glinted, a little too ripe and round, on the large elm outside the window. Kind of cold in here. Was it the shock of coming to my senses that made me stiffen so suddenly? Or was it the reaslisation that I was alone - the only one in the room? The window was open. The bed was empty. Christ! How did he manage to get past me? This was the second time - and this time I was sitting in the room with him! The sheet fell off me as I rose to my feet, aching from chair sleep with a flash of minor distaste for waking up fully dressd. Again. Still, it was a dirty job but... I stuck my torch inside my belt and my gun inside my pants, between the band and the bone of my hip. It shouldn't fall out. Oh Jeff, Jeff, Jeff, you are a hard man to keep hold of. I'd been saying that all my life.   
  
I pulled up the window sash and assessed the distance to the most prominent bough. It could be done but it was definitely a hand and glove job (I had both) - the bark looked cruel. Memo to self: lock the windows and make sure there are no trees nearby. I then clipped the the window open to its fullest, and jumped. I did gymnastics at high school - I quit at 19 to allow my body to develop properly and it had shot up by four inches - weird but not unheard of. Bully for me. Using the branches as high bars it's a semi success. I certainly don't hurt myself. I drop the torch though and it takes me a minute or three to find it, undamaged, on the grass obscured in the shadows.   
  
He could be anywhere, last time we just found him wandering near the stables, he could be further this time, God knew where. He could *hurt* himself this time. I take stock of the grounds. Over to the west is a forest, still part of the property but possibly an inviting prospect for a mute amnesiac. Well...I didn't know exactly. Maybe he could remember, maybe he could speak, but he never said a word. Just call him a mute and burn the rest of the bridges when I get to them. CAT scan showed scar tissue but other than that his recovery was exceptional. Exceptional and downright impossible. Jeffrey Spender should be dead. Except he wasn't. He was an, at least, half naked man running around my property at past midnight.   
  
I made a fruitless circuit of the house before following the instinct to go west, and finding, on the lawn just before the forest, his pajama shirt. Just swell. What was the matter with him? It was fucking cold out here. My breaths were misting before my eyes. I picked up the shirt and draped it over my shoulders, looked at my crappy digital watch. It had been twenty four minutes since I'd left the room. Jeffy, where are you? I thought about calling out to see if he could hear me but thought the better of it. I doubt he'd answer me. I'm going to have to do this the hard way.  
  
I entered the forest and crossed out of the lawn lights into near perfect darkness. Took my eyes a moment to adjust. It's just me and the man in the moon. Every so often as I passed amongst the trees and ferns, torch to the ground watching where I stepped (didn't want to make too much noise - not that Jeff would run away. Or maybe he would. The last time he had gone back to his room grudgingly, at best). I stopped for a moment, cocked my head. There was a rustle in the gnarled forms and shadows - a little further and I'm sure there was a clearing, north-east. I pulled the gun out of my pants band and slipped the safety off, lined it up with my torch.   
  
There was a flapping overhead. An owl or roosting crow, I made out it's progress against the starlight. Usually, I'm guided by voices...and bodies. Enough of that. Something pale is on the ground a yard from me, dropped by the bushes and dead leaves. Jeff's pj trousers. I wonder vaguely if he's nuts and I grimace slightly when I think I might be right. Bullets to the head had unpredictable results. And there I was crouching, staring dejectedly at the lost pants. Then, I heard it. I was so soft and inhuman that you'd almost mistake it for the wind. You certainly wouldn't mistake it for a man. I moved towards it my tendons straining around the metal of the firearm.   
  
It was coming from the clearing. I moved in closer. I didn't need the torch anymore the whole place was open to the moon. On a hot day you could lunch out here with a picnic basket. I kicked a twig out of the way so I didn't step on it. The leaves on the ground were moist, I could make out crystals of dew under them. They might thaw out in the morning if it didn't get any colder than it already was. I eased to the left, stayed low. Sweet, sweet, I thought to myself, there he is.  
  
There was something disturbing about it. Something. He was there, in the clearing, a naked man. His back was to me - which helped - less of a a distraction. And I think, if you ever spy a naked man in the forest, run like the devil himself were after you. But I don't run. I just look, at his bare feet and his bare back, christ, his everywhere is bare, and he's there standing in the cold (I can see the mist rising from him in fitfull clouds. Is he hyperventilating?) Come back to us Spender. Come back to me, Jeffrey. My gun hovers before I slip the safety back on and slide the metal into my belt. He sounds like he's hissing, except he's not, that mad keening sound starts to come out of him again and I wish he'd stop. Except I know that if he does the silence will clutch at my insides worse than when his pain filled my ears. He sounds like an animal now. I hear, somewhere in the distance, dogs barking. The cords in my throat tighten. I say it softly.  
  
"Jeffrey." It's almost a whisper. "Jeffrey." Slightly louder.  
  
He hears me and falls silent. Just as I guessed, the silence hurts more. He turns around and sees me standing there, dead torch in hand half out of the undergrowth and shade and briars. He looks...so blank.  
  
"Jeffrey, you need to come back in side." I say. Still soft and non-threatening.  
  
He turns all the way around. He isn't ashamed of his nakedness. I'm not even sure it registers. Where does he think he is? Who does he think he's talking to? The tilt of his head and the angle of the light; I think his cheeks are wet, I think he was crying. I step towards him.  
  
"Jeff, it's me. Lili"  
  
Not a word. I stand almost directly in front of him and while I understand he's heard and seen me, I'm not sure what that means to him. I touch his arm - he merely looks at me touching him. Then he looks at the clothes over my shoulder. His eyes seem somehow tormented, in another place. I doubt he ever felt the cold. When I take his hand I notice it is raw and torn - he had climbed the tree out of the window after all - he has scratches on his face. His hair, at least has grown back where they shaved him. Not a hint of stubble - I'd watched over the nurse shaving him this morning. No, wait, yesterday morning. My hand creeps to his shoulder.  
  
"Jeff, we have to go home."  
  
Mute as ever. Hell, his skin was cold, really cold. His eyes were still shiny from tears - shining not with emptiness or weariness, it was as if he was trapped somewhere behind his eyes. I pulled at the clothes around my neck, and gave him the shirt first.  
  
"Here, put this on."  
  
I have to help him put it on because he looks non-plussed, not disinterested just non-plussed. I do up the buttons and wipe his cheek affectionately. Maybe he brushes against my palm like a stray cat, maybe he doesn't. Nobody here but half-naked madmen and girls called Lili.  
  
"Trousers now."  
  
I'm still soft with him, I help him with his pants, I try not to look. When Jeffrey's all suited and booted, I put his arm in mine and get him to walk with me back to the house. Once, he looks back at the clearing and that mewling sound rises again, but it gets strangled in his throat and he falls silent again. He only looks back once. For a moment I look back with him and wonder what he saw there.  
  
***  
  



	3. 1979

  
[1979]  
  
"Jeffrey."  
We didn't hear that.   
"Jeffrey!"  
We didn't hear that either.   
  
Jeff opened his eyes for a moment, his lips still brushing mine. He didn't withdraw, and then he closed them again like he hadn't heard a thing. One of his hands rested on my leg, the other somewhere to my left drifting along between my waist and shoulder blade. My hand (left), for the record stroked his neck while the other (right) arrested somewhat the movement of his from too far up my leg. We were joined at the mouth.  
"Jeffrey!?"  
Uh-oh, that one sounded a little strained. It was a wonder we could hear at all. We were in our own little world, which excluded the adult and parental outright. Jeff attempted to part my lips with his tongue. I had to grab his hand again, it was on the dangerous threshold of above the knee and under the skirt.  
  
"Jefffrreeeyy"  
The voice split and seemed to crumble. I heard it concede a certain defeat and mumble something unintelligible. Jeff withdrew completely and I pulled my skirt back over my knees. I wasn't sure but it sounded like his mother was on the verge of something akin to tears. I touched my lips with my hand and stood up. Jeff clasped my hand.  
"I think your mum's upset." I said, and he nodded...  
+++  
Some of the crueler among the army brats had dubbed Mrs Spender, Mama Cass. I just got the impression she was under some sort of pressure, something she couldn't talk about. Jeffrey said she cried sometimes. I'd been invited to dinner once and she had just stopped in the middle of talking to me, whilst serving the peas and carrots, like she wasn't even there. Jeff says his mom can see things sometimes. Maybe she saw something then because she dropped the serving spoon and sat back down. Jeff pushed back on his seat and went to her. He said soft, calm things. Real nice. I swear she started crying but without any tears. Jeff had to take her to bed - we fed ourselves. The rest of the evening was spent washing the dishes and watching tv as we weren't sure whether we were allowed to touch or kiss each other yet. We were still just friends. Jeff came over to visit while my mom taught me isometric exercises and gymnastics. We had taught Jeff how to use the rings a little, but we were gearing up to get him on the horse. In return, he taught me and my mom some judo he'd learnt off Kennedy Hutchinson's dad. On April Air base everybody's kid knew everyone else's kids. It was a given. Just yesterday Jeff had secretly told me he had a half sister. She came to the base sometimes to visit. Her name was Samantha.  
  
I had borrowed one of Steven Dawson's comic books and was reading it instead of watching tv. There was a growing contention amongst us kids, as to whether the X-Men could kick the Incredible Hulk's butt; I voted X-Men, Steve said Hulk, the rest were undecided (although, Andy Ford had a tendency to bring Star Wars into everything, which pretty much left everyone fighting amongst themselves). In this particular issue, the X-Men were fighting the alien Shiar Imperial Guard for the life of Jean Grey. Miss Grey, had been over taken by a powerful intergalactic entity known as the Phoenix and corrupted by its infinite power she had destroyed an entire solar system. X-Men leader, Cyclops, was so in love with Jean that he had agreed to fight for her life (on the moon of all places), but sadly, Jean knew the power and evil of Phoenix - and was slowly being subsumed by it. And as she slowly succumbed, the X-Men were falling like flies against the alien Guard. Engrossed, I kept reading. Who would win? The mutants or the aliens?   
  
Jeff had gone to check on his mother - she had been asleep for two hours now - when he re-entered the room he sat next to me on the couch and scoffed, both at me reading the comic and the Incredible Hulk on the tv set. Vaguely aware of his mocking I spoke:  
"Do you think the X-Men could kick Hulk's butt?" Lazily I coiled my hair around my fingers without really looking at him.   
Jeff, the soul of all practicality and stoicism answered:  
"Bruce Lee could kick all their butts."  
  
I pondered this for a minute.  
"Doesn't count, Bruce Lee's dead."  
"Yeah, and Hulk and X-Men don't exist."  
I simply smiled wryly, he wasn't in the mood for hypothetical fight-outs.  
"Is your mom ok?"  
He ran a hand through his hair.   
"She's sleeping, but I think she's good. I'm sorry about...earlier. She's..."  
I closed my hand around his and our fingers entangled, resting on his thigh..  
"It's ok, I understand." I said, because I did. I really did. I looked at Mrs. Spender and I saw Jean Grey.  
At least she wasn't like Billy and Emelia Sherringham's mother, who drank wine and spoke in long indecent slurs if you caught her off guard. Cassandra seemed like a nice enough woman, just a little lost. At least she didn't scare the hell out of me like...  
"Jeffrey!"  
Jeffrey's dad.   
  
He entered the house through the back door and seemed a little irritated. He had a long coat on and a suit underneath, he looked kind of grey and dusted. As ever, there was a lighted cigarette between his index and forefinger. (We used to laugh about putting superglue on his Morleys or sprinkling them with sneezing powder, but as always when it came down to it - at least where he was concerned - we chickened out big time). Nobody particularly like Jeff's dad - Mr. C.G.B Spender, sir! Nobody could quite tell why. He could be short but he wasn't rude or anything. He just projected something quietly dark. Jeffrey immediately stood up from the sofa - ramrod straight. I placed my discarded hand on my lap and tried not to look as guilty as I felt. I was only 15 and Jeff was one year older, but I knew I didn't like being scared or intimidated. I was also starting to have a serious contempt for Mr. Spender. My knees were tempted to rock. I quickly remembered the comic book and put it on my lap, clasping it and my knees to stop them shaking.  
  
"Where's your mother?", the smoking man asked just a little too sharply.  
Jeff had his hands by his sides, like he was bracing against something, I merely felt like the sixth wheel.  
"She's sleeping, sir, she had a headache. I could wake her-"  
Jeff had to address his dad as 'sir', we didn't ridicule him for it because we did exactly the same thing. The very same damn thing. His father suddenly noticed, Jeffrey was not alone. His demeanour changed without so much as a blink when he observed me on the sofa, as I trembled a little despite myself. The last thing I wanted to do was to get Jeff into trouble.   
  
Putting the cigarette to his lips, the man inhaled and exhaled lightly, the beginnings of a smile played his lips. I inwardly winced, *that* was creepy!   
"Well, Jeffrey, I didn't realise that you had company."   
And he said this last word with an insinuation I didn't quite like. Not that he was being threatening or lewd or even condescending, but the way he said it made me want to punch him on the nose and run away screaming. It was like the room temperature had dropped the minute he'd arrived.  
I actually surprised my self by getting up politely and smiling.  
"I'm sorry, sir, Mrs. Spender invited me over for dinner. My mom said I could stay until seven."  
I looked wildly for a clock. The grandfather in the corner read five past the hour of seven.  
The man exhaled again and noted the time.  
"So it is." he smiled.  
Surely his face was going to crack if he kept up this jovality. Then he surprised me again by saying.  
"I'll just have a word with my son and I can drive you back to your mother's."  
I simply nodded and said, "Thank-you, sir.", as he excused himself and Jeffrey to another room.  
I stood alone in the living room, figeted for a moment, then looked out the window.   
  
There was a car out there - it was Mr Spender's - only he had a driver. We all figured he must be the big boss to consistently have a driver and move around with such awe-inspiring audacity and power. There didn't seem to be any area of military life that Mr Spender didn't move in. The driver was touching his had to his ear, like he had a radio in it or something. Probably did. I turned around suddenly as I heard someone re-enter to room, it was Mr. Spender, Jeffrey was not with him. He smiled again.  
"Jeffrey's seeing to his mother. I'm sorry that he cannot say goodbye to you himself."  
"That's all right." I said, with the distinct feeling that it was far from all right   
"Perhaps, I ought to get you home to your mother."  
I thanked him again and said "Goodbye Jeffrey" to an empty hallway.  
  
I said nothing in the car, simply stared out the window while Mr Spender talked discretely to his spooky driver. I watched the lights of the base roll by and overhead somewhere the roar of a jet. I stared at the cover of the comic on my lap and then looked up noticing suddenly with a shock that Mr Spender had been watching me in the rear view mirror. He blew spoke out the open passenger window and I felt an overwhelming relief when the car finally pulled up outside my the place I called home. I saw my mother on the verandah. I opened the car door, said thanks again and fled for my life.  
  
My mother met me by the front door. I tried to explain the escort home but it came out rather plainly as:  
"Mr Spender brought me home."  
I looked back at the car and grimaced. He was getting out. My mom said:  
"Honey, maybe you should go inside, I'll talk to you later."  
I nodded and fled. Except I dallied for a moment just inside the door. They were talking. He leaning against the verandah post and my mother was standing, perfectly poised, perfectly polite. She smoothed a hand over her dark chestnut hair - like mine - and laughed a little nervously. I could see he was smiling at her. Enough of this, it was giving me the heebie jeebies. I went to my room and curled on the bed reading the rest of my comic book.  
  
Jean was turning into Phoenix again. Scott had her in his arms and was begging her to hang on to herself. But Jean knew the battle tide was turning. On the dark side of the moon she felt herself changing - into Phoenix and then to Dark Phoenix. She could destroy the earth in an afterthought. She pulled away from Cyclops and ran into the path of a laser cannon. It fired. Throwing her forward with its blast. She had time to vainly scream her lover's name, while he vainly screamed hers. Too late. Her chest erupted into carbonized atoms and she died in the airless void of our solitary moon.   
  
I think Cyclops cried. I know I did. I listened to my mother and Jeffrey's father laugh on the verandah and I wondered how the universe could be so cruel...  
+++  
I snapped back to reality. Straightening my clothes. I gave Jeff a kiss.  
"See you tomorrow." I said.  
He smiled gently and went to find his mother.  
  
***  
  



	4. The Sacred & Profane

  
[The Sacred & Profane]  
  
It was still dark. Sitting beside the bed, I watched Jeffrey's face in repose. He was sleeping. I'd had to sedate him. If I hadn't he would probably have sat up for the rest of the night, staring forlornly out of the window. This way I could be sure he wasn't going to wandering again any time soon. He could get some rest and so could I. I hoped. I wasn't sleeping too well at the moment. I had moved Jeff to a different room. It had reinforced windows and an alarm that triggered my beeper if disturbed. It also had an ensuite bathroom and a surveillance camera. I was tempted to kiss him on his cheek before leaving the room and locking it but didn't. I did decide not to stay away too long - it was like leaving him in a padded cage.  
  
I climbed two flights of stairs to the study and locked the door behind me. It seemed colder here than outside. I lit myself a fire. Of interest, there were a collection of books and documents. There were also a cabinet of disks and dat tapes. Finally, there were a two tv screens, a video recorder, tape recorder, one terminal and an assortment of fine furniture. I could not only keep an eye on Jeff from here but a few select corners of the estate too, not that it mattered. The logs crackled on the fire as I settled into a chair and poured myself a brief slug of brandy. Very brief. It would be stupid to get comatose at this hour. I took a sip - liquid fire for the people - then raised the glass in a silent toast. To black rooms and men in white lab coats. To memory and enmity. I stared into the crackling tongues of flames and remembered.  
  
***  
  
I thought I heard something. Again, very clearly, there were three staccatto taps on my window. I almost jumped out of my skin. Someone was outside. I wondered what time it was. I curled in my bed for a moment wondering what to do. The hand now started to scrape a little. I think, vampires can only come in if you invite them. Which reminded me of earlier that evening when I had left my room for a glass of water to find C.G. B. Spender, my mother and my father in the living room having a cozy chat. I'd nearly strangled my teddy bear out of embarrassment and disgust. My mother noticed me first, my father and Mr Spender carried on larking (if that was the word) smoke trailing up to the ceiling.  
"Something the matter, Lili?" she said, all concern.  
I just said I was thirsty, got my glass of water, and went back to bed. Then I'd laid in bed miserably contemplating what seemed to be the sounds of amusement before drifting off. And now this.  
  
I got up, pulling nervously at the neck of my cotton nightgown (it had hearts and stars on it) that seemed to be choking me and paused to make sure no one else was awake. I then went to the window and drew back the drape. When I saw it was Jeffrey I drew back the curtain and opened the window. He wore a crumpled t-shirt and jeans that paled at the knees.  
"Can I come in?" he asked.  
I told him quietly to be careful coming through the window. My mom and dad were sleeping. He did and he was. I shut it behind him staring out for a moment to see if anyone else was out there. Then I looked back at Jeffrey.  
"What's up?"   
I tried to make it sound more relaxed then I was. He'd come in through my window before - even though I didn't like him doing it. If my parents ever found out I'd be grounded for at least a month with a padlock on my window. Still, noticing how small he looked against the darkness of my room, I felt a paralysing sense of something gone wrong.  
"Is it your mom?" I asked, whispering.  
As if to answer he half shrugged and half collapsed. He leaned against the foot of my bed.  
"She's gone." he said.  
That made little sense to me. Mrs Spender had left the house in the middle of the night? I wanted to ask where, but he spoke again first.  
"Can I hide here?"  
"Why- Hide from who?"  
And here he clutched my shoulders and clung to me for dear life.  
"From them. From the aliens."  
He squeezed me tighter until I couldn't breath and I felt I'd explode for lack of air. Something was wetting my shoulder. He was crying, I could hear him softly sobbing.  
I pulled away from him and made him sit on my bed. I put my fingers to my lips to say he was getting too loud. Sheesh, he was almost getting hysterical. This wasn't the Jeff I knew and, no, I'd never seen him like this before. Even when Iggy Riley said his mother was a screw ball and should be put down like a dog, and Jeff had got his lip busted making Iggy eat dirt. Not like this. I could only think to call my mother but her and my dad's get together with Jeffrey's father was all too fresh in my mind. Besides, aliens?  
"The aliens?" I said.   
Surely I hadn't heard that come out of his mouth.  
"They took my mom.", was all he offerred.  
I didn't want to ask any more. I think he'd had a bad dream and woken up in the house without his mom. I heard, Emmie Sherringham had said that in class once but I was assured she was lying.  
"You can stay here, but you'll have to sleep under the bed." I assured him.  
Plenty of room down there. It wasn't dirty and more importantly, it wasn't obvious if someone came in. I gave him a Kleenex to wipe his face. I didn't seem able to ask him properly what he was talking about. He might be more honest in the morning. I thought, looking misgivingly at Steven Dawson's comic book.  
I remember leaning down from where I lay and asking Jeff if he was asleep yet. And I remember waking up early the following morning to find that he was gone.  
  
+++  
  
I didn't see Jeff again until the following day. I didn't get to speak to him until two days later. Him and Jimmy Anderson. They were having a baseball game in the field in the far side of the base. My mom had gone next door, so I left her a note. Jimmy was the same age as Jeff only a little (half an inch) taller. Sometimes the girls mooned over him. My mom called him the rebel without a quilt - I think it suited him. He always seemed to have a load to talk about, like what plane they were hiding out at some obscure hangar and what exciting covert air manoeuvres we'd missed the night before. It was a relief when he ran ahead to find the others. A big relief.  
  
Jeff looked weary but otherwise undiminished. Like he always did. How was I going to start this conversation?  
"Did your mom come back?"  
"What?" He missed a beat.  
"You know, you knocked on my window the other night. You said she was gone."  
"I think you were dreaming."  
I stopped in my tracks. No I wasn't.  
"No I didn't. You knocked on my window. You were *crying*." I threw this in to see how he'd react, "You said 'the aliens' had taken her." OK, I was sneering now, but he was accusing me of lying when for the last 48 hours I'd been half going out of my mind wondering if he was out of his - or if it was one really bad joke.  
"Oh, that's funny. I almost forgot to laugh. You've been reading too much X-Men, Lili."  
I didn't move. *Me*. He woke me up in the middle of the night and he said that I was a loon? I calmed He had to be kidding me.  
"No Jeffrey," Emphasis on all syllables so he'd understand. "I am not joking."  
"Then you're lying. I've only ever knocked at your window once. Or twice." he said, correcting himself.  
"You don't even remember." I spat, angry that he wouldn't admit to being scared or being an idiot. Or both.  
"I remember. I went to bed and I stayed there."  
I think I exploded. "You can be embarrassed but don't lie to me Jeff. I know what I saw."  
"And I think I know what I did. My mom and me went nowhere."  
I shoved my hands into my pockets hard and didn't say another word. We walked to the game in silence and never said another word to each other for the entire evening. After I'd been struck out I went home, turning up the collar of my jacket and cursing quietly so I didn't have to cry.  
"Asshole." I said to myself.  
  
***  
  
I think I was so irritated that evening that I actually did my geometry homework. I remember my mother wasn't home for dinner and that my dad and I ate in near silence. Probably I watched television or read a book, maybe but I know that I was awoken again later that night by another tap to my window.   
  
Jeffrey again. I pulled back the curtain and flipped him the bird. I heard him say through the glass:  
"Open the window. Please."  
He didn't look hysterical or weird this time. Just normal Jeffy. I opened the window and narrowed my eyes, unhappily.  
"I suppose this is a nightmare." I said.  
"Not this time." he said. "Are you talking to me?"  
I could have answered that by shutting the window and going back to bed.  
"What do you want?" I replied.  
"Because," he continued unphased yet emphatic, "I wouldn't want you not to be talking to me."  
"You started it." I replied, wondering how old I was.  
He didn't argue this point, just said: "O.K.", before carrying on. "Jimmy and I are going over to hangar 18, he says you can see some cool stuff out there. Want to come?"  
"What kind of stuff?" I asked gingerly.  
"Jimmy says they've got some new type of spy plane out there that can fly like this-"  
He outlined the shape of a tringle in the air, his finger tracing a path like those weird houseflies that hover just short of the ceiling, moving as if they're bouncing off invisible angular walls.  
"Bullshit." I remarked.  
He smirked. "You'll have to see it to believe it."  
  
***  
  
Hangar 18 was not far from where we'd played baseball and I discovered Jimmy Anderson had brought Louise Farlowe with him. I eyed him with suspicion. The motive for this little sightseeing tour now seemed positively shakey. We lay out on the grass beyond the fencing. I was surprised there was no one scouting the perimeter. I was lying next to Jeff when Jimmy and Louise started making out. Yuck, I wanted to barf. Jeff looked at me apologetically but put his hand on mine.  
"Exactly which planes are we dealing with here?" I asked  
Jeff pointed to the west and replied smartly: "Those ones."  
To my surprise and relief, he wasn't making it up. Out of nowhere there had appeared what looked like giant fireflies, at first weaving conventionally in the inky sky and then moving like nothing I could have imagined.   
I shook my head and simply mouthed "What?"  
I couldn't speak it was that incredible. How come nobody told us? Probably top secret. If we got caught seeing this...I suddenly wondered if those were the aliens Jeff had talked about the other night. I looked over at Jimmy and Louise, who had separated their faces long enough to admire the aerial display. I squeezed Jeff's hand. The craft were completely silent. Sometimes the lights on them changed and flashed as if they were communicating to each other. Sometimes they wheeled in and out of clouds lighting them up like chalk dust. The wind was picking up behind us, it was laying the grass flat giving it the effect of shivering. Suddenly paranoid, I looked around awd, to take in the view and almost squealed in surprised. Almost. My hand shot away from Jeff. I was suddenly cold. I'd blinked and then it was gone. I thought I'd seen my father, half shadowed, half lit by the waning moon.  
"What's the matter." Jeff asked.  
I'd turned over and sat up, my back to the whirling aircraft. I almost answered: "Nothing." when I saw the men coming up, across the field towards us.  
I freaked and scrambled to my feet, almost falling over Jeff and Jimmy. They saw where I was staring, Louise was still watching the sky.  
"Run!" Jimmy yelled, practically throwing himself vertical and pulling Louise by the arm. She looked over her shoulder and saw what all the commotion was about Then she realised there were men advancing to the right as well. I guessed there more than three to each of us. We were so busted. There was nowhere to run.   
  
  



	5. Jupiter's Lament

  
[Jupiter's Lament]  
  
Memories are strange things. They fold and fade like burning photographs, or jump and dance like madness against the flames. Who's to say what strands of true and false are intrinsic to human perception. Is it personality or experience that can make you lean more towards one than the other? Is a man without a soul only a man because he remembers he was? Do you exist only because someone remembers you did? Maybe some memories, like questions, are better left alone.  
  
I remember (and it's best to note I only recovered most these memories years later) being frogmarched down to the hangar, scowling with every step. I didn't know these men and they didn't look military. They looked like the men who hung out with Jeffrey's dad. I remember Jimmy saying: "You can't keep us here.", because it made me want to laugh. The sad realisation that these guys could do anything they liked because we'd put ourselves at their disposal, was about a hair's breadth between me and my sanity. Shuffled into an empty hangar, in the middle of nowhere, in the middle of the night.  
  
Jeff brushed beside me and I could see Louise's lips start to tremble. Bad sign.  
"What were you kids doing out there." One of them asked. He was tall, dark-haired, sour-faced and authoritative.  
"We were making out." I replied deliberately and bluntly.  
Out of the corner of my eye I could almost see Jimmy explode.  
"No we weren't." he spluttered, daggering me darkly with his eyes.  
Some of the men behind the one questioning us were whispering amongst themselves.   
"What were you doing then, son?" the Talker, asked.  
"If you'll forgive us, sir," said Jeff, "that's none of your business."  
I smiled sidelong at him.  
"We only wanted to see the planes!" Louise suddenly blurted.  
Christ! If that girl didn't know to land us in it. I was pretty sure none of these Men In Suits were buying our line in bullshit, but it was worth a try. You know, like the Bay of Pigs: if it went wrong - deny it.   
"Well you see, miss," Talker nodded to Louise, "that's where it becomes our business. I'm afraid you kids are going to have to come with us."  
Jimmy looked at Jeff and I could tell Jeff didn't know what to do. I didn't know what to do either. And then it was too late to do anything.   
A hand gripped my arm.  
"Ow! You're hurting." I squeaked, a little shocked at the cadence of my voice.  
Neither the man holding my arm, nor Talker seemed to care. I was almost bodily dragged along. Jeff bolted towards me but somebody I couldn't see grabbed him.  
"Jeff!" I almost wailed.  
I heard Louise echo me far of on my opposite side. There seemed to be a scuffle around Jimmy but he was shouting too.   
Someone grabbed me around the waist lifting me off the ground and I kicked, screaming. I could hear Jeff calling my name before his voice got muffled. And I could only hear vague kicking and the sound of fabric against fabric over where Louise used to be, while I squirmed and kicked. I heard Jeff again. He growled: "No! Don't." then try to add something else and trail off mid-sentence, like a tv going off.   
Someone gruffly said, "Turn her over." and I doubled my efforts. The world kept swaying crazily, I was being held close to the floor. I felt my chest flip over my throat and a sick taste in the back of my mouth. One of my hands worked free - all other limbs held in place - and I pushed against the grit of the floor trying to support myself and wrench free at the same time. The cold bled into the skin. I tried to look up for a moment, seeing Jimmy's feet (one sneaker, one sock), limp and unfeeling, drag past me. He was being yanked away. My neck strained to see him but the lights were all awry, shadow chaotically everywhere at once. By accident it seemed, I saw my dad again, not too far away. He neither moved to help or said a word. He just looked at me.  
  
"Dad! Dad! Please!" my voice sounded hoarse and desparate. "Ow!"  
  
I pursed my lips, a needle pick on the lowest part of my back where someone pulled the jeans back. More hands oppressing me. My vision of my father swirled. I called out one last time, "Dad, dad." but my voice sounded quiet and weak.  
  
***  
  
My eyes opened. A bed, a pillow and the ceilings, everything white. Am I dead? My body felt drained. People in white uniform drited past me. Am I a ghost? My throat, sore and cracked, tingled with itchiness and I was taken with the burning desire to cough. It came in stubborn stabs of air. It felt like I was suffocating. Yet the coughing continued, my body wracked with the effort. My mother suddenly floating into view above me. Her expression restless and harrowed.  
  
"Mom-" I cut off coughing, wheezing. I could barely breathe and between these coughs. "Mom. Where's. Dad...?"  
  
Doctors and nurses now. And silence. And dark.  
  
***  
  
"And where are you now?" pondered the voice on the tape.  
My voice replied, but it sounded like a little girl.  
"I'm c-cold." The voice trembled, audibly in a cold place. "I'm so c-c-cold. I'm in a box." It said. "But the box is like glass."  
"Is anyone with you?"  
"No. I'm alone...and my fingers...hurt."  
"Why?"  
"So cold..." The little girl said.   
"Can you see anything beyond the glass?"  
"Yes."  
"What can you see?"  
"Jimmy and Louise."  
"Where are they?"  
"They're in boxes too. Boxes of glass. Like me. Only...they don't move. Like they're sleeping. I'm cold...I'm...I'm wiping the glass to see."  
"Is anyone else-"  
"Jeff!" The girls voice jerked uncertainly.  
"Where is Jeff."  
"They're taking him...He's going with them."  
"Going with who? Where?"  
"Them! They're taking him to the table...to be tested...they're stealing his mind."  
"Who are they?"  
"I don't know." The girl answered earnestly as if she were trying to remember. "Can't move...so cold...arms are heavily...my eyes...are closing...Can't..." Her voice trailed off.  
  
***  
  
I was coming around.   
  
I coughed again. The woman beside my bed noticed and smiled at me.  
  
"Oh," she said in mock cheerfulness, "you're awake. You've been asleep for almost 12 hours."  
It was Mrs Dawson from next door.  
"Where's my mom?" my voice scraped the bottom of an invisible barrel.  
"She's- She's in the living room, talking to...some people."   
I noticed her hesitate betwen thoughts. She moved to the other side of my bed and opened the curtains. The dull light of evening emptied in around her. I squinted slightly and slipped delicately out of the bed. The carpet felt peculiar under my feet. The door was open and I walked into the hall, hearing her behind me.  
"Wait! I don't think you should see your mother just yet!"  
"Why not?" I croaked. "Mom?"  
I picked up speed and turned into the living room. There were people there all right. The living room was full of people and everyone had a sombre expression. They turned and parted a little when they saw me and I caught a glimpse of my mother, sitting on a chair, her back to me, her head bowed, her shoulders shifting in words and feelings unheard to me. A man was there beside her, his hand moving to rest on her shoulder smoke rising, from the silhouette of his dark coat.  
"Mom?"  
She turned, her eyes red-rimmed, her lipstick faded, mouth distorted in grief. And the man at her arm, C. G. B Spender. My spine went cold. She didn't have to say it. None of them did.  
I simply wailed. "Dad, dad..." without quite knowing why.  
Mrs Dawson took me back to my room, where I simply cried, as we sat on the bed and she held me.  
It was inexplicable why I felt so bad. My thoughts swam and fought for the surface. I seemed to recall Jeff Spender brushing against me in the darkness but it seemed so like a dream.  
  
Only later did she tell me that I'd been in an accident. That I'd nearly drowned. She could only guess that I had gone off with them - Jimmy, Jeffrey and Louise - and fallen into one of the trenches on the training ground. Heavy rainfall had made them slippery and filled them with water. I had fallen in. Louise had gone for help and some officers had brought us home. The very same night, my father had died in what should have been a routine night flying recon.  
  
***  
  



	6. Daughter

  
[Daughter]  
  
I stiffened in the chair, it was cold again, the fire had long gone out and the pale fire of dawn was burning the windows. My entire body ached I rubbed the back of my neck and tried to stand. My eyes hurt - just a bit too much light - but I kept them open anyway. Steadily, if not cautiously I got up, reflexively checking the waistband of my pants - the gun was still there. My stomach whined in protest, I touched it vaguely - soon my pet, soon we'd get breakfast. Brushing the hair away from my face, I checked on Jeffrey - he appeared to still be sleeping like a baby. The digital display on my watch read 5:43am. I stretched, hearing my back 'crick' morbidly. I was getting too old for this. Really. I stole a look back at the screen and the sleeper. Completely oblivious - everyone should sleep like that. Lucky Jeffy...in theory. I paused. My hands went numb. A peculiar feeling hovered for a moment. That 'someone dancing on your grave' feeling. As usual the hairs on the back of my neck and forearms stood on end. I let it ride, adjusting to it. It was familiar to me.   
  
Once, to kill time, I'd gone to the cinema - not my usual thing but I'd gone anyway. Just to kill time. It didn't matter which film it was, I hadn't the faintest idea what any of them meant, who they starred or what genre - didn't care either. I remember the expression on the ticket girl's face when I said it didn't matter what film so long as it wasn't over two hours. I remember watching the aisles more than I watched the sceen. And I remember nearly spitting out the cola in my mouth when the kid on the screen said "I see dead people."   
  
I turned around rapidly, redundantly whipping out the gun, to aim at the apparition in front of me. Then blinked, sniffed and relaxed simultaneously but I didn't smile. I think I have a way of looking when I see these things - its all grimace.  
  
"Hello, Cassandra." I say grimly, before tucking the gun back into my waistband.  
  
She doesn't say anything. And in my past few weeks of seeing her - she, like her son, never says a damn word. Just stands there looking all beatific yet strangely bereft. When I'm in worse humour I'm tempted to kick something. Today I'm satisfied to let her stand in her funny nightgown (hospital gown?), staring at and through me. Nevermind Mama Cass, they screwed us all over. Every single one.  
  
***  
  
Sometimes things can be right under your own nose, literally on your own doorstep and you still fail to see them. My mom was seeing someone. And maybe it had been going on for a while before I started to notice - it almost a year after my father died. I don't think I'd wanted to see it before but the changes were starting to be obvious. I was spending more time around Jeff than I was at home. When I was home the house stood oddly half-empty in the evenings, and I choked down on the creeps for a while before my mother arrived. Me being alone in the house didn't happen too often, but when it did I reminded myself of everything my father and Jeff ever told me about how to hold a gun.   
  
Gradually, my mother's hours had lengthened. She'd come home late sometimes, the smell of cigarettes in her hair. And it still never occurred to me to connect the dots. Until one night, choking on the heat I wake up for the customary glass of water. The house is quiet, but I detect what I perceive to be movement in my mother's room. Nothing but dark under her door. I shrug it off - anyone would have trouble sleeping in this weather. Go to the kitchen get my water. Unable to sleep, I sit at the living room table. Listening to sound of the crickets hum, as it drifts in from somewhere. Watching the weird shadows spill across the ceiling whenever a car or jeep drives past. They make bizarre patterns within the glass of water while I sip it. Finally, feeling no more sleepy or cool than before I simply put my head to the table and drum my fingers. Which is when I notice the ash tray. It owns one half-smoked stub. I reach, not thinking, for the tray - my mom doesn't smoke but I can't entirely rule it out. She used to 'steal' one of my father's and just stand around with it in her mouth, unlit. Maybe she'd fledged a full habit and I hadn't even noticed. Maybe. I catch the stub in my fingers and hold it up to the light. Morley, it reads. My blood goes cold.  
  
All the seminal events that I'd seen and not thought about uncoiled before me at that moment, like I was inside a spiralling labyrinthe with only a string to guide me out. It all made horrible, compounded sense. And the thing was, that as I slipped out of my chair like a ghost, I was terrified I'd fall back in it and wake them. And then, for what I thought was the first time, I had that peculiar sensation and out of the corner of my eye I saw the specter of my father. My hand came down across my mouth to stop what I felt was going to be a scream. I squeezed my eyes shut for a moment thinking I was seeing things but he was still there. It was moments like this that I wished I had a tremulous disposition and could faint dead a way. But I couldn't and I didn't. I just walked as quietly and quickly as I could to my room and pretended I was crazy and hadn't seen a single thing. Not the ghost, not the cigarette. Nothing. As if to confirm my lunacy, when I looked back over my shoulder, he was gone.   
  
***  
  



	7. Love

  
[Love]  
  
She was still there. Closing the door quietly (why? I don't know) and locking it again. She had been staring out of the window with her back to me and seemed only mildly interested enough to look in my direction as I left to room. I turned to descend the stairs, stomach still growling. I wondered what she was waiting for? I figured I had enough time to shower and do the usual rounds before I attended to Jeff- At the foot of the second floor I froze, 'the feeling' was back. I shook my head, was she following me? I scanned the stairway behind me, looking up. No. Him.   
  
It was Jeffrey. I think my heart sank, shrivelled and screamed all in the same instant. For a blind second I couldn't even move. He was fully dressed in a suit and long coat - funny that I should be wondering why his apparition should clothe itself like that, in the official capacity of a job and a life he no longer owned. Almost as if his job had become a function of his identity even though he didn't have it any more.   
  
"Jeff, don't-" I said.  
  
What was I saying? If he was here that could only mean... I ran down the remaining flights my heart expanding to explode. From up the hall I could see the door was open The nightnurse had a master key. I made it to the door. In the hall that ghost of Jeff was lighting a ghost cigarette, leaning against the wall as if to say: "Go ahead, see what you can do. I won't matter." He blew smoke up above his head and I wanted to hurt him. Ghost, fiend, whatever it was. A hallucination? Jeff didn't smoke, did he?  
  
I crossed the threshold into the room.   
  
Jeff was laid out on the bed, his shirt was open like they'd been trying to resuscitate him and it hadn't worked. There were three nurses. One, the closest we had to a doctor, looked at me sadly and shook her head. One of the other nurses - male - was already leaving the room. I think I left all semblance of sense and sanity because I heard myself scream: "No!" with such conviction and strangled anxiety that I was pretty sure the voice wasn't mine. I didn't own this kind of pain or anger - raw and intimidating. I could weather this type of tragedy without so much as a wink. Couldn't I? My vision was swimming. The remaining two nurses were merely looking at me as I looked at him. On the bed, so still, so still. God, he still looked like he was sleeping. How could I have missed...? I touched his hand. Still warm. Not dead long. The second nurse left the room while the last still stood watching us. Or, rather, me. She knew me, she'd patched me up enough times. She started to say something but I didn't want to hear.  
  
"Leave us." I said, my voice low, quiet and devoid of anything, everything.  
  
She left. I shut the door behind her. Without thinking I walked to the window and drew the blinds. The room was dark again. I could see the outline of Jeff's body on the bed. Silent, unmoving. What could I do? What could I do? I was absently wiping hot moisture from my eyes. I couldn't be crying? What could I do? My head was thundering the litany. I think a sob escaped me, I think I sank to my knees, I think I only realised I was sitting on the floor when my hand touched the cold linoleum tiles and I shuddered. My head was bowed. The 'feeling' was coming upon me again and I just wanted to pull out my hair in empty frustration to take away the deeper, stretching numbness and disbelief. Anything, anything. I'd do anything.  
  
Leaning on my knee, I noticed the briefest hint of the handle of the knife I kept there, strapped against my leg. It spurred me into desperate action. I had a half plan in my mind and it wasn't sane. I kept whispering, I can go with him, I can go with him. And pulling the knife out of it's hiding place I really wanted to. I looked at it's sharp glinting edge and the way my hands looked so blue and cold in the semi-darkness, how the veins stood out. They were shaking, my hands. I pressed the cold, sharp thing to the hollow of my neck and closed my eyes. A voice came out of the darkness.  
  
"You don't have to be so melodramatic, you know."  
  
My eyes flew open. In the corner by the door, the apparition I'd seen in the hall came out of the shadows.   
  
"You don't have to be so melodramatic." It repeated again, as if I hadn't heard it. Then it put that cigarette back in it's mouth pondered for a minute, took it again between index and thumb and blew a tobacco halo.  
  
"I heard you." I replied. A certain cruelty in my vowels equalling the contempt I felt at that moment for that thing, masquerading as Jeff.  
  
"Oh, so you know!" It positively cackled.  
  
My hand closed around the knife again.  
  
"You're such a bright, beautiful, dangerous little thing." It said, looking me up and down this time. "Don't tell me we haven't met before."  
  
We had but that wasn't the point.  
  
"What do you want?"  
  
"I have a...what do you call it? A proposition." It stretched the mask of Jeff's face into a wry, emploring expression.  
  
I looked at the real Jeff's body on the bed and was kind of glad he didn't have to see the blasphemy this creature jangled into his features.  
  
"You don't like it?" It said, picking up on my thoughts again. "Would you rather I looked like this?"  
  
Suddenly I was looking at my father. I said nothing.  
  
"No?"  
  
It went back to imitating Jeff.   
  
"I prefer this one. It irritates you the most. Jeffrey - just like his father." It exhaled smoke like a dragon.  
  
The colour bled out of my knuckles and the blade pressed into my skin. If it was cutting me, I couldn't feel it.  
  
I tried to make my mind blank. Failed.  
  
"What do I want? Yes, this proposition...You want to save him." Not a question, a statement of fact. "I want you to...try, at least. What do you say?"  
  
I'd say go to hell but...I couldn't. Hell had come to me.  
  
It didn't even respond to this one, just dropped the cigarette, put it out with the flat of it's shoe and held it's hand out. I hesitated for a moment and then gave it the knife. Silently and methodically it rolled up it's sleeve so the forearm was exposed, placed the point of the knife at it's palm, pushing it down. Blood spurted up, red at first, then a fouler more corrupt colour. It twisted the blade around carving something into it's palm without so much as a quiver. Then drawing the knife up along the inside of it's upper arm, leaving a line of blood that stopped at the puckered sleeve.  
  
"Your hand, my lady." It mocked me.  
  
I held it out. I was surprised when it actually touched me, mildly repulsed but mesmered, marvelling that it was a solid entity and not just a pathetic phantom of my grief. I felt the firm grasp of this thing, holding my hand and then the sharp pain of it cutting me open. It seemed unbearable. And I knew it wasn't just carving my hand, it was carving far deeper than that. My arm was going numb, the pain excruciating now, I wanted to whimper, I wanted to cry out - but I didn't give, no matter how badly I wanted to. The blood, ours, was dripping onto the floor. It pulled me forward suddenly and I started, nausea suddenly curling against my stomach. My temples throbbing. I heard myself gasp, unexpectedly. It's fingers were burrowing into mine as it held me, still cutting, the skin and muscle visibly parting around the knife's path up my forearm. Why wasn't I passing out? Now it added deep gouges in the arm around the initial cut. I started to pull the hand away.  
  
"This isn't...necessary." I panted around my pain.  
  
The thing looked up. Jeffy's mask paling slightly. It's hand still squeezing mine, I heard the bones crack. The blood blending, the flesh melding. My voice seemed to roar though it wasn't saying anything. He jerked his hand, mine and me upward. He was so tall that my feet didn't touch the ground, my body strained impossibly against gravity. Heart began to ache, the thud of it all I could hear in my ears and the sense of slow infection as it's blood stole into me. Our wrists were fusing into one hardened bone. Everything shifted. I felt...like...I was dying.  
  
"But first," it said, (I could only hear blood in my ears) "a kiss."  
  
And then I felt i..was..d r o w n i n g.  
  
***  
  
------------------------------------------------------------------------------  
  
- fin -  
  
CONTINUED in The Dark Ages. 


End file.
